More than six million new permanent immigrants, excluding Ukrainian refugees, will be registered in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2022, due to labour shortages and humanitarian crises.
These are "record numbers" noted the OECD, who released their new report International Migration Outlook 2023 on Monday.
The organisation added that rising labour migration was one contributing factor – as migrant workers have helped lower labour and skills shortages in OECD countries. Asylum applications in the OECD were also at a record high.
“Permanent migration and asylum applications to OECD countries last year were at their highest levels on record, driven by increases in humanitarian and managed labour migration, along with accompanying family members," OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said.
Cormann also added primarily due to the tightness of labour markets and significant labour and skills shortages in many OECD economies, labour market outcomes of migrants are also the best on record, with increases in both new labour migration and the employment rate of residents.
Labour market prospects and integration of migrants have improved, with the employment rate of migrants rose to 72.3% across OECD countries in 2022, catching up almost with that of the native-born population. Employment rates increased both for migrant men and women.
In Belgium
More than one in three of its member countries, including Belgium, had not seen such an influx for at least 15 years "while several countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, broke absolute records," it commented.
Belgium welcomed 122,300 new permanent immigrants in 2022. According to OECD statistics, this represents an increase of 9% on 2021 and 7.3% on 2019, when the Covid-19 pandemic had not yet weakened the global economy. Compared with the 37 other OECD member countries, this is the 28th and 20th biggest increase respectively.
With more than two million new requests, asylum applications have also reached “a historic level in 2022”, adds the organisation. “This increase can be explained in large part by the explosion in applications in the United States”, it points out.
In Belgium, 32,140 applications were received in 2022. Compared with the previous year, this represents an increase of 64%, while the figure for 2019 is 39%. This puts the flat country in 17th and 23rd place respectively for the highest increases within the OECD. The majority of Belgian asylum seekers were Afghans, Syrians and Burundians.
Finally, admissions on humanitarian grounds, including positive decisions on applications for international protection and arrivals with a view to resettlement, followed the same trend. In Belgium, there will be 11,005 admissions in 2022, 10,120 in 2021 and 6,770 in 2019.
